


Almost Normal

by itsaquinnquinnsituation



Series: The Lone Gunmen, continued... [2]
Category: The Lone Gunmen (TV), The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 19:14:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6296620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsaquinnquinnsituation/pseuds/itsaquinnquinnsituation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year 2004. The Lone Gunmen had survived the events of Jump the Shark, but now face a life very similar to that of Mulder and Scully on the run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost Normal

**Author's Note:**

> None of the characters or the plot of the original TV-series belong to me. I am not making money off my work, which is written for entertainment purposes only. No offence or copyright infringement intended.
> 
> This is my universe and exactly how I see it. Writing should be enjoyed, not judged.
> 
> This is a trial run, really. If anyone likes this style, I will try to write more as I have an idea for a longer sequel, though I will not burden you with the details of the Gunmen's survival - but in my universe, they certainly did. So, here you go.

***

 

If you would have asked her earlier what she thought she would require to feel happy, she would have probably responded that all she dreamed of was something normal. Something ordinary, something you see every day, you know, a loving partner, a couple of kids, a dog – after all, that’s what she grew up believing she wanted, that’s what she was always taught to want. That’s what everyone was telling her she would be good at, what they advised her to take steps towards…

But she was now chipping at that ominous number 40 and she had none of those ‘normal things.’ Although well – a partner – maybe, if you could call Mulder that, because God only knows what they were – or if they still were – two separate beings; and a child - also maybe – because she did not really allow herself to dwell too much on that – it was too painful, it was just too strange, almost too unreal, almost like it couldn’t have happened to her at all because that was not the turn she could ever imagine her life would take.

 

It was pushing seven o’clock and she was pulling her coat on by their front door. In January it was easily dark by half four and she was getting sluggish and drowsy. Dimmed lights in the wide open space of the cabin and the real fireplace, crackling with satiety on its cedar dinner, were making her soporific and philosophical. 

She didn’t always like those moods.

She had got up off that couch briskly, forgetting to tell them what she was doing. When she caught herself though, her eyes met with Byers’, and she knew she didn’t have to explain. 

She and Byers understood each other on that very special level.

She started to walk and she could hear Langly begin to whisper something behind her back and felt Byers silently cut him off. 

Already by the door, Langly eagerly reminded her:

“And don’t forget to give that cd to Mulder!”

“’Please,’ Langly!” – She fixed his rudeness exasperatedly, then added, - “I wish you’d stop supplying him with these games! I wouldn’t want him to turn into…”

“Me?” – Langly volunteered awkwardly, and immediately Byers made a face. Langly’s arm was perched atop his shoulder – he was using him like he would a doorframe or a mantel.

“I didn’t say that” – Scully replied with a smile. She found Langly’s unassuming look endearingly amusing.

“Hah” – Byers chuckled, - “He’s alright.”

She had no idea whether he meant Langly or Mulder, but Langly grunted at him approvingly, and Byers, instead, smiled at her. 

And then she left.

 

She thought it funny that both she and Mulder, and the Lone Gunmen, eventually came to settle in the very same area they were living in before the whole mess. Though ‘settle’ is probably not exactly the word one would want to use seeing how she and Mulder were still technically on the run and the Gunmen were, for all intents and purposes, dead. And yet, here she was, just outside their cabin in Bryans Road, Maryland, about to walk through the back woods of a national park to a non-descript car parked in a lonely dirt road dead-end, to drive to her own abode in no-less godforsaked Occoquan, Virginia. ‘You’re just a stone’s-throw away!’ – she remembered Langly yelping in excitement when he first learnt of it and then Byers’ dull: ‘But there’s no direct road…’

There wasn’t. But she was always happy to see them – even if she didn’t have the energy to show it. 

She liked them well enough before – but they became so much more important since she was left with nobody but Mulder. Visiting her family was too risky, she had no other friends and Mulder had no family, so that really left the two of them – and the Gunmen. The Gunmen were dead – as in really dead – to the world that is, she thought, good God, at least my mother knows I am still alive. But for the Gunmen, that was it. The only ‘ordinary’ person who knew of their survival was a young lad she never actually met. 

The Gunmen’s situation seemed pretty bleak, but somehow, she never got that vibe from them when she visited. Frohike, he was a different matter, since his ‘return from the other side’ he had it hard – he kept moving in and out, dabbling in dope, passing strange cryptic messages onto Mulder, disappearing for weeks on end and was probably the reason Byers’ hair was greying so exceedingly fast. 

But Byers didn’t look depressed at all. And he was a terrible liar. 

She always thought that out of the lot of them, Byers was probably the most ‘normal.’ Mulder chased aliens, Langly chased virtual monsters, Frohike – God knows what Frohike chased, was it his own ego or some perverted pleasure of seeing his archenemies suffer – but Byers, Byers seemed to be the only one who strived for something more acceptable and common. Yes, he too, of course, wanted to see the truth come to light, and in fact, his intentions could have been the most noble and selfless of them all – but he was rational, collected, realistic, and generally, very polite, well-adjusted and… normal. Byers always seemed to her very normal.

 

It was beginning to drizzle and she slowed down on an empty road. She found herself thinking about that same thing again.

That, if you looked at it from a completely objective standpoint, the person she would have been better off settling with, out of all of them, all of the available men reasonably known to her at the time, - the best candidate was probably Byers. 

She could imagine that. Byers was a hard worker, but he was not obsessive or self-destructive, like Mulder. Byers was polite and authority-conscious. He was socially adept, he was likable, her mother would have loved him, and with all that, he held true to the same values she did. And he was very good-looking – perhaps not as dashingly handsome as Mulder – but very easy on the eye, nonetheless.

She wondered somtimes, just for the heck of it, how life could have been if she had somehow settled with Byers. They probably would have had a couple of kids, just like she wanted, a boy and a girl – she could count on that – a dog, almost certain, Byers just looked like he would love a big dog, a white SUV, a 3-bedroom house…

But…. how long would she manage that kind of a life? How long till she would get sick of it? How long till she would begin to sorely miss Mulder’s frenzied eyes, his unruly hair, sticking up on attention in the middle of the night as he’s pursuing another glob of goo down George Washington Parkway in nothing but a tank top and pyjama bottoms? A month? A year? Five? How long till she would begin to hope that this man next to her would do something crazy, something really out of this world, something spooky, for God’s sake? How long till she would start to wish that every day would be filled with bottomless insanity and insanely brilliant unpredictable mind that was Mulder? How long till all she would want, would be Mulder?

 

She realised it at some point some six-seven months ago. And then, it wasn’t with some kind of a shock, you know, of the “since when??” kind, but more so the – “Oh? I never knew…”

Because Byers just didn’t belong with Langly. Apples and oranges. Colours and whites. Cats and dogs. Those two were like two puzzle pieces - from completely different boxes. 

Byers was supposed to end up with an average-height, average-hairstyle, average – or, perhaps, above average – intellect - female. Langly could only end up with a virtual one. In the best case, that is.

But Langly and Byers – no. There was nothing normal about that. 

And yet, they seemed happy.

The truth is, she never understood – or cared to understand – Langly. He seemed immature, socially awkward and though he may have been brilliant, she didn’t care for computer science. But once she realised that about him and Byers, she began to see him from a completely different angle. 

Or it could have been that they relaxed more around her once she – not in so many words – let them on that she knew. Langly joked a lot – he joked all the time really, sometimes it felt like he couldn’t be made to shut up, and Byers blushed and laughed in turn, his cheeks burnt and his eyes glistened and somehow, she began to like Langly – despite all his awkwardness, he was witty, sarcastic, genuine, sweet, and above all, it was clear that he loved Byers at least as much as she loved Mulder. 

 

“Mulder?” 

She didn’t notice the time weave its way up windy back roads of Occoquan. The dark sky was covered with severe clouds. Droplets were still rare but heavy and cold.

“Mulder?”

She didn’t turn the light on, but marched through the cabin nonetheless. It was dark. It was quiet. She stepped into the kitchenette and looked into the back yard. 

She noticed him, clad only in a thin long-sleeve, in a hammock. He was completely motionless.

Her heart jumped into her throat and momentarily blinded her as she flew through the back door into the chilly night. She sunk her nails into his shoulders and yanked on him violently.

“Sc..Scully!” – He shrieked.

She was so taken aback, that she froze completely. Only after a few seconds of looking into his wild, black eyes, she mumbled:

“M-Mulder?”

“Scully, what are you doing?” – He kept looking at her.

She began to come to. He was still laying in that hammock, in that same thin cotton shirt. She frowned and threw:

“No, Mulder, what are YOU doing? I come home, it’s dark, I call your name, you don’t respond, I go looking for you, and you…”

“What?”- He stared, then laughed, blinking, - “You… No… You thought I was dead?”

He laughed and laughed and she really wanted to slap him. Instead, she said:

“Come inside. It’s cold.”

She began to move away and felt him rustle behind her. The next moment, the world rolled. 

“Mulder?”

“Mh?”

“Do you really think that laying in a hammock in the middle of the night in January is what normal people do in this neck of the woods?”

“Hm…” – He seemed to ponder it somewhere underneath her body, buried under her extensive overcoat in the depth of the canvas swing, - “Mmm… My guess would be no.”

Damned right, she thought, looking into the gloomy sky that still couldn’t decide on whether it wanted to dowse them with cold water or leave them to freeze, instead. And she could just imagine how, just a stone’s throw away, a suit-clad, well-groomed, very stable-looking young man was looking at this same sky in much the same manner. A man that she once thought, was probably the best potential match for her. A very reasonable, very calm, very normal young man who never wanted to and did not end up with her, but who was, nevertheless, very happy. Because another man, one with a wicked sense of humour, disinhibited imagination and rebellious set of mind – invariably sporting dorky glasses and in-your-face-unkempt stringy blond hair - was probably standing somewhere right next to him. 

Because there was no ‘normal’ in happiness.

And well – maybe, thank god for that.

 

***


End file.
